Our local broadsheet, ‘The Herald’ reported on January 12 2016 a statement by Archbishop Tartaglia on parish closure . You know the kind of thing . There was a mention of ‘clustering’, although not of the problems which this has caused elsewhere, say in Boston. His remarks displayed a diplomatic approach to the situation, and no exception could be taken to them.
But the final sentence of the article is worthy of careful examination, no mention of which is found elsewhere. We quote it:
‘ The Archdiocese also denied it was attempting to create superparishes and that only in some circumstances would formal amalgamations be an option, while some within the Church have accused the hierarchy of procrastination and seeking to avoid any conflict at all costs.’
Ignore the ‘superparishes’ bit, despite the element of humour which this introduces into a grim subject. Look again at the last clause.‘ ..while some within the Church have accused the hierarchy of procrastination and seeking to avoid any conflict at all costs.’
What we want to know is who are these ‘some’? They obviously resent the diplomacy with which Archbishop Tartaglia has broached the subject in general to an ageing and embattled Catholic population. Possibly, lacking his intellectuality, they simply don’t understand the concept of diplomacy. Surely it cannot be that, should they be clerics, they resent as well an apparent concession to mere layfolk? Dinosaurs, they say, may still survive in the depths of the Congo. But in Glasgow in 2016 ?
Look at the next phrase:‘accused…of seeking to avoid any conflict at all costs’. Now ‘within the Church’ can mean anything. But here we seem to have apparently spiritual(!) descendants of the old top-hatted parish priests, feudal barons in their own parishes, who, if only according to legend, armed with a blackthorn stick and (then) incomprehensible Latin abjurations, would soon knock sense into recalcitrant poor Paddies . Can there really still be lurking in the Archdiocese priests ordained according to the order of Melchisedek, whatever that may actually mean, spoiling for a fight ?
‘At all costs’ What costs? Listening to a flock which has had to cope with Cardinal O’Brien ? Which has had to cope with Currypowdergate in Lanarkshire ? Which has had to cope with an apparently unending succession of paedophile priests ? Which has had to cope with all this in their daily life at work and among neighbours in the bizarre sociological jungle which is life for Catholics in the West of Scotland ?
Who are these ’some within the Church’ mentioned in the article?
We would like to hear from them. If you know who they are, let us know. We would like to reason with them.